


the soldier and the cake

by shatteredhourglass



Series: Winterhawk Bingo [17]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Cake, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Could Arguably Be Platonic Dom/Sub Vibes?, Ethical Dilemmas, First Kiss, Identity Issues, Interior Decorating, M/M, Miscommunication, POV Clint Barton, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Steve Rogers, Recovery, mostly from steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23066500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredhourglass/pseuds/shatteredhourglass
Summary: “Give me a mission,” the Winter Soldier says, a thread of desperation underneath the flat tone of his voice, and Clint’s way too sleep-deprived to deal with this right now.“Hold this,” he orders, shoves a cup of flour into mismatched hands.Then he goes back to mixing.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: Winterhawk Bingo [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1443160
Comments: 119
Kudos: 744
Collections: Winterhawk Bingo





	the soldier and the cake

**Author's Note:**

> The identity issue part is a whole thing here - disclaimer; the Winter Soldier does not identify as Bucky Barnes at all through the duration of this fic, but you're free to imagine what happens in the future. In fact I encourage it, so I don't have to write any more. (Haha.)

Clint doesn’t even notice the new guy lurking in the kitchen at first.

Loki doesn’t bother him anymore. He _doesn’t_. It’s all old scars that have faded off to nothingness and besides, Clint’s had worse from people who were supposed to be his friends and family. The fact that a random Norse god decided to fish around inside his head isn’t that much of a bump in the hellish road trip of his life. Clint’s moved on with his life.

(Denial’s a hell of a drug.)

Point is, Clint’s got better things to do than to dwell on what happened to him two years ago. He’s an Avenger now, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and all that crap that he doesn’t actually care about.

But _sometimes_ \- just sometimes, not every other night like it used to be - Clint’s mind will yank him out of a perfectly good night’s sleep. It doesn’t help that he’d been on a mission for a full two weeks and that the idiots who had managed to capture him had a brainwashing chair. Where the fuck had they even got that thing?

Either way, Clint’s fine.

Those guys are dead and he’d managed to hitchhike all the way back to Stark’s Tower, the drivers thankfully ignoring the blood caked under his nose and in his hair. He’d lost his vest in the smoking ruins of the former Hydra base and the night air had been soothing against the scrapes and burns on his shoulders and back. No one had bothered him in the lobby, and JARVIS had only checked to make sure no one was coming to hunt Clint down.

He’s fine. He’s just not sleeping tonight, so his heavy feet take him up the elevator to the communal floor and into the fully-stocked kitchen. He doesn’t bother with turning any of the lights on except for the one in the pantry, and even then he pulls the door so it’s nearly shut and he’s in shadow.

Clint can’t actually cook - there’s rules about him and barbecues, and him and stovetops, and him and making dinner - but he can bake chocolate cake with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back. There’s something comforting in feeling like he’s doing _something_ , at least, keeping his hands busy while his mind trudges through every bad thing that’s happened in the last thirty years of his life.

He doesn’t notice the guy standing in the darkness until he moves, and even then Clint doesn’t click that it’s not just Natasha until the light catches off of a metal arm, outlines a red star.

He remembers now. Steve had texted him to say they’d brought Barnes home.

Clint decides he doesn’t really care. He doesn’t have the emotional capacity to hold a conversation, so after making sure there’s no risk of being shot - he’s not stupid enough to think that an assassin _wouldn’t_ be armed, but there’s nothing deadly in the Barnes’ hands right now - he goes back to what he was doing.

His late night visitor just stands there.

At least there’s no awkward conversations.

Tony’s moved the _fucking_ self-raising flour.

Clint’s aware that Barnes probably wants something, but what he could want from the guy who’s making cake to avoid his inner demons?

“Give me a mission,” the Winter Soldier says, a thread of desperation underneath the flat tone of his voice, and Clint’s way too sleep-deprived to deal with this right now.

“Hold this,” he orders, shoves a cup of flour into mismatched hands.

Then he goes back to mixing.

The others start to filter in when the sun comes out.

Clint’s finished the stress baking by then and instead he’s dozing off at the table. The hard wood isn’t exactly comfortable, but it’s something. He’s made a half-hearted effort to wipe off the blood on his face and when he closes his eyes he can mostly smell dish soap and fresh chocolate.

He hasn’t taken out his hearing aids, so he hears Tony talking to Natasha before they get close. Clint doesn’t bother opening his eyes, keeps his cheek pressed against the wood and barely reacts when Natasha’s fingers land in his hair. She finds the cut on his scalp almost instantly. Clint grunts and she curls her fingers in his hair and tugs gently, a warning that he should be taking better care.

“Did he die on my table?” Tony sounds interested, at least. “That’s going to make this place hard to sell when I’m dead, Barton, don’t do that.”

Clint tries to say _fuck off_ , but he’s not sure if it’s coherent. It comes out as _frngf_. Oh well, he tried.

“I’m getting a first aid kit,” Natasha says and her hand disappears. Clint misses it immediately.

“So Barton, what did you find out on- oh, fucking hell!”

Clint raises his head with some effort, blinks blearily until he sees Tony backing away from the kitchen counter. He looks like he’s seen an alien and when he swivels around Clint yawns at him. He doesn’t _mean_ to, but it’s fairly indicative of how he feels about Tony’s dramatic side.

“Why,” Tony says, his voice unnaturally high-pitched, “is the Winter Soldier in my kitchen _icing a goddamn cake?_ ”

“Actually, he’s just decorating it,” Clint answers, goes to put his head back down on the table.

“That is not what I meant- Barton, do _not_ fall asleep while I’m talking to you.”

Aw, hell. “I told him to?”

At that point the rest of the team decides to arrive and Clint pushes up onto his feet, rounds the counter. Steve’s the first to notice Tony’s expression, and Clint ignores them as the Soldier turns the cake carefully, finishing off the icing.

Clint tips his head to the side.

“Nice touch with the flowers,” he comments.

The Soldier doesn’t smile - his face doesn’t change at all, actually, but there’s something brighter in the blue of his eyes. Clint feels his own lips tug up for a second and then Steve’s pushing in between them.

“Hey, Bucky,” Steve says, face earnest. “What are you doing?”

Clint leans to the side so he can see the reaction that gets. The Soldier just looks - well, uncomfortable. Steve doesn’t seem to notice that, though, and he keeps trying to strike up a conversation about what the Soldier’s been doing, how he’s taken off his leather gloves - Clint asked him to, because hygiene, but the Soldier isn’t answering.

“Barton’s got the touch,” Tony says dryly, and Steve turns around to look at Clint.

Clint takes his cake and leaves.

Natasha finds him once he’s eaten most of it.

It’s a surprisingly good cake. If he’s honest, he was half-expecting to be poisoned; either by his own blood getting in the mix or the Soldier poisoning him on purpose. Clint’s settled himself up on the roof, nestled in a corner where the wind won’t attack him too much. His bones are heavy with exhaustion and Natasha appears in front of him between one blink and the next.

She tuts at him and then opens the first aid kit she’s got sitting next to her.

Clint just sits there and takes it. Chances are that he’ll get an infection if he doesn’t let her fuss. He doesn't care about that too much, but she’ll just sit on him if he tries to get away. Natasha’s got a special kind of tough love that means no hugs, no kissing, no obvious outward expressions of her love other than picking him up when he falters.

It’s the best kind of love.

“You didn’t hit your head?”

“No,” Clint says, but she shines a light in his eyes anyway. He squints at her and she sighs, taps out two pills and hands them over to him. He swallows them without water and she sighs again.

Then she notices the slice of cake he’s left, carefully set out of the way so it’ll be safe.

She doesn’t say anything at first, just gets the tweezers and holds his face still, pulls out a wicked-looking shard of glass that he’s missed. Her expression stays neutral and Clint lets his eyes shut, thinks about curling up in a corner of the couch and closing his eyes for a few hours.

“He’s barely said a word since he got here,” Natasha says eventually.

Clint doesn’t react.

“That’s the first time he’s done anything besides stare into space and case the weapons locker,” she says. “Steve’s going to be asking questions.”

“I didn’t do anything, Nat. I just wanted to make a goddamn cake.”

“I know, Clint,” she tells him, pats his shoulder gently. “I know.”

He manages to squeeze in a nap a day or so later.

_Technically_ he didn’t plan it. It was more of an accident, because after sneaking his way down to the range to avoid Steve’s oncoming interrogation and starting to shoot, he’d somehow ended up passing out on top of a stack of barbells. It’s not the worst place he’s fallen asleep in, so he manages a good three hours before he’s alerted to a presence hovering above him.

“No one tell you it’s a bad idea to sneak up on an assassin?”

Clint’s expecting Steve or maybe Natasha, but when he opens his eyes the Soldier’s looking down at him. He yawns and stretches, shifts so that piece of metal isn’t jabbing so violently into his spine. The Soldier steps back when he sits up. Clint glances around to see if anyone else is here but nope, it’s just them.

The Soldier’s staring at him.

He turns on his hearing aids. “What’s up?”

The Soldier blinks real slow at him. It reminds Clint of a cat, sort of. “Give me a mission.”

Aren’t there other people in this building that can take care of their rogue assassin? He wasn’t even _here_ for the extraction. Clint’s not sure why it’s him that gets tasked with this, but if that’s what the Soldier wants, whatever. An extra pair of hands never goes awry.

“Help me up,” he instructs, holds out a hand.

The Soldier’s fingers link with his immediately - oddly, much gentler than he expects - and Clint’s hauled up without so much as a sigh of effort. It’s like he weighs nothing at all. Might as well be a damn feather to the Winter Soldier.

It’s kind of offensive, really.

“Boomerang arrow,” he informs the Soldier as he holds it up. “Comes back to you. Kate keeps telling me it’s a waste of time, but I think it’s gonna be big. Especially ‘cause I keep losing my damn arrows in the field. You want to take a look?”

The Soldier fixes him with a faint deer-in-the-headlights look and Clint realizes he needs to rephrase.

“Here,” he says instead, taking the question out as he passes it over. The Soldier takes it automatically and Clint goes back to fixing some of the arrows he’d salvaged from the Hydra mission. “Tell me what you think of it.”

Clint puts down one of the arrows on the coffee table and reaches for the delicate tools he keeps to fix the fancier arrowheads up. Man, these arrows are _super_ fucked up. He doesn’t really expect a reply from his companion, so he focuses his attention on what’s going on with his hands.

“Non-lethal,” the Soldier says eventually.

“Depends on how you use it,” Clint replies. “You’d prefer a sharper one? Stick a blade on the end?”

Clint waits for a reply, but he doesn’t seem to have anything else to say on it. After another minute the boomerang arrow is set back down on the table silently and Clint continues doing what he’s doing. It’s looking like a lost cause, to his misfortune. Honestly, how can one man’s skull fuck up an arrowhead that badly?

“That arm any good for bending steel?”

The Soldier nods - Clint only catches it in his peripheral vision, wonders if he can even hold a conversation. It’s a yes regardless, so he passes over one of the arrows that are bent almost beyond repair. A few seconds later it’s passed back to him. Clint lifts it up to the light and sure enough, perfectly straight.

“Handy,” he says. “Thanks, buddy. You get that cake?”

“Yes.”

“Taste good?”

“Better than Hydra’s food,” the Soldier comments. It surprises Clint into actually raising his head to make eye contact with him. That’s the first full sentence beyond _give me a mission_ he’s heard from the infamous Winter Soldier since they’ve met. He snorts without meaning to, and the Soldier doesn’t _exactly_ smile but his eyes light up a little when he sees Clint smiling.

Clint makes a mental note to bake another cake.

Then he spends the rest of the day wondering _why_ that was his first reaction.

“Hi, Clint,” Steve says. “What, uh. What are you up to?”

“Redecorating. Hand me the photo on the table.”

It’s not a metal-plated hand that passes over the blurry photo of Loki, and Clint realizes that he hadn’t specified who he was talking to. He still sticks the picture in the middle of the target and smooths it down before he turns around to an uncomfortable-looking Steve and an unsettled-looking Winter Soldier.

It’s clear that Steve _wants_ something, but this time he’s not hounding the Soldier. It’s like the Soldier isn’t even in the room with them. He’s staring somewhere over Clint’s shoulder instead, arms crossed, and Clint gets the vague sense that he’s done something bad.

“What’s up, Cap?”

“I need to speak to you. Privately,” he adds with a sideways look.

The Soldier’s not exactly adept at expressions. Clint still catches the flicker of worry in his eyes and feels briefly guilty before he decides it’s easier to go along with Steve for the moment rather than risk a scene in front of the guy. He offers up a faint smile to the Soldier, tries to be reassuring.

“Go fetch those fairy lights you were looking at,” he says. “The ones with the white and purple.”

The Soldier pauses for a second - glances sideways at Steve like he’s expecting a Captain America-sized bomb to go off. Either the order or the promise of fairy lights sways him, though, because a second later he’s wandering off in the direction of the elevator. That leaves Clint alone with Steve, though, and he’s starting to regret that decision.

“I need to talk to you about Bucky.”

“Alright,” Clint says, perches on the arm of his couch. "What's up?"

Steve looks like he hasn’t expected it to be this easy.

Clint waits.

“Bucky’s… still recovering from what happened to him,” Steve says eventually. “He’s confused.”

“Someone sticks their hand up your ass and uses you as a hand puppet, you’re bound to get a little turned around,” Clint agrees. “Kind of expected him to be a vegetable.”

Steve frowns. Clint’s got a terrible case of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time - one of the reasons Natasha does a lot of the undercover work and Clint sits on a rooftop or in a tree by himself - and this is no exception. He doesn’t facepalm at himself, but it’s a close thing.

“My point is,” Steve says, slow and a little dangerous. “He’s _vulnerable_. He doesn’t need people taking advantage of his mental state.”

Ah. “You asking me to leave?”

“No,” Steve replies, holding his hands up. “You’re part of the team. I just…”

“I’ll let you handle him from now on,” Clint finishes.

It shouldn’t matter. He shouldn’t feel bad about this for any reason, and yet there it is.

Regardless of whether Steve has kicked him out or not, Clint goes to stay with Kate for a few days.

Lovely, lovely Kate. She never asks him any questions - not because she respects his privacy but because she really, _really_ doesn’t want to know what shit he’s gotten himself into this time. Clint appreciates her attitude towards his life because he gets it. He’s tired of his own crap too.

Kate’s couch is the perfect place to settle for a few days and that’s where he stays. He doesn’t even realize he’s having feelings until Kate’s friends start giving him weird looks. (The weird looks are because he hasn’t moved at all in the last five hours, and he’s been watching the shopping channel the whole time.)

He sleeps on the couch too, and it works for all of a week until he blinks his eyes open to see a dark shape leaning over him.

It’s the gleam of silver in the moonlight that saves the Winter Soldier from being stabbed in the throat by a startled Hawkeye and Clint’s just relieved that Kate went out for the night.

“What’re you doing?”

“Give me a mission,” comes the reply. It sounds a little unraveled, rough on the edges.

Well.

“Don’t think Steve likes me meddling with you, buddy,” Clint says, tugs his blanket up around his chest. He’s not wearing a shirt and for some reason he feels a little exposed. Probably the fact that an assassin just broke into his friend’s house to demand Clint tell him what to do with himself.

“ _Steve_ ,” the Soldier repeats, with enough disdain that it startles Clint into a laugh.

“How’d you even get here? Sit down, you’re giving me the heebie-jeebies,” Clint says, forgets he’s not supposed to do that anymore.

The Soldier settles down right next to him. Kate’s living off of a fair amount of cash from her parents, so it’s not like the couch is _small_. Apparently it is to the Soldier, though, because now they’re close enough for their shoulders to brush.

“Instagram,” the Soldier says. Clint forgets he’s asked a question, but _oh_. Yeah, Kate likes posting funny pictures of him when he’s asleep. That makes sense.

“You allowed to be here?”

The Soldier doesn’t answer that one. It’s probably because the answer is _no_ , and there’s a ninety-percent chance that someone’s having a fit back at the Tower, but Clint’s still sleep-warm and heavy. It’s not his job to corral the Winter Soldier.

On the contrary, he’s staying _out_ of this situation, so instead of asking more questions or dragging them both back to the Tower, Clint slumps sideways until his cheek’s pressed up against hard muscle and closes his eyes again.

It’s someone else’s problem now.

When he wakes up the Soldier’s still there, though.

Maybe it _is_ his problem.

“Food,” Clint says, pushes the plateful of eggs over Kate’s spotless kitchen counter.

The Soldier looks down at them like he’s found an alien and Clint pulls the eggs back over to his side, pushes over the bacon instead. That gets a more interested look, so Clint leaves him with it and rounds the counter so he can sit on a bar stool. They eat in silence for a while, long enough for Clint to realize Kate hasn’t come home for the night - he should tease her about that later - and for him to realize the Soldier is wearing a very familiar purple hoodie.

“What do you want?”

“Give me a mission,” the Soldier repeats.

“Don’t think that’s a good idea. How about some apple juice?”

Clint does actually get up to rummage through the fridge, so he doesn’t see what the Soldier does next. When he turns around with the apple juice in his hands, though, it’s to see a distressed expression about two inches away from his face, and the distance is only that good because he’s taller than the Soldier is.

“Please,” the Soldier says.

He sounds - lost, almost, and a little pitiful.

Clint’s finding it difficult to analyze his expression when they’re so close together. He can’t exactly back up when he’s sandwiched between the fridge and the Soldier, but when Clint flattens his palm against the Soldier’s chest he backs up easily. Not a threat, then. Just no concept of personal space.

He’s come all the way here to find Clint specifically for this - at least, that’s what Clint’s guessing - and he’s asking for it. Clint’s pretty sure that if he told the guy to get lost, he’d leave. He’s not enough of an asshole to do that, though.

“Sit down,” Clint says, and the Soldier’s shoulders sag in relief. “Drink your juice.”

Staying at Kate’s feels rude with an uninvited house guest, so Clint packs up his stuff and they get on the bus to the Tower.

“You should probably try talking to Steve about all of this,” Clint tells him while they’re stopped at the lights. “He’s kind of overprotective.”

The Soldier makes a face and yeah, fair enough.

“You should tell him to back off if you’re not comfortable,” he adds. “He’d never act like this if he realized it was a problem. He loves you more than he loves life.”

He doesn’t get a verbal reply for that. He’s not really expecting one, to be honest - half of his conversations go unanswered and that’s just part of this relationship. Clint’s not sure what to call it. Are they friends? Companions? Does the Soldier press this close to other people in the Tower or is it just something he does with Clint?

Clint hasn’t really questioned it because _why would he_ , but…

Nah. He’s not going to ask.

“Have you seen Dog Cops before?”

A blank stare.

“Yeah, didn’t think so. I’ve got a world of beauty to show you, pal.”

The Soldier looks curious and Clint files away plans to get a handful of different snacks from the kitchen to see what he’ll eat out of those, too. He pulls out his phone a second later to see a message from Natasha, telling him that Bucky Barnes has disappeared from the Tower and is nowhere to be found. Funny, that.

It brings up an interesting question, though. “ Do you _want_ to be called Bucky? I know Steve calls you that.”

“I’m not,” the Soldier says after a few minutes, doesn’t finish the sentence. He looks troubled. Clint gets it.

“Fair enough,” he answers, doesn’t push it.

The Soldier’s fingers brush his a second later.

Clint doesn’t pull away.

He’s so busy thinking about whether Hulk ate all the Doritos that he forgets about Steve, for a minute.

“Barton,” Steve says the minute they step off the elevator, and it’s the cold kind of fury that makes Clint stop with one foot off of the ground. Steve looks - well, angry feels like an understatement right now, as he advances way too fast with his fists clenched like he’s going to knock Clint on his ass.

If that _is_ what he’s planning, he doesn’t get the chance.

It’s hard with the two hundred and sixty pounds of metal-armed supersoldier suddenly blocking his way. Clint’s tall enough that he can see the flicker of shock in Steve’s eyes. Clint’s a little shocked too - all those complaints aside, the Soldier still came back to the Tower for _Steve_ and no one else. Still, it seems to startle Steve out of his angry charge.

“Bucky,” Steve says. “I need to speak with Clint.”

“No,” the Soldier says, very clearly.

Steve looks like he’s been smacked with a brick wall. Clint decides it’s better to dissolve the situation now rather than later and curls his hand around the Soldier’s waist, gently pushes his fingers into soft fabric and warm muscle until the Soldier takes a step to the side and looks back at him.

“We’re not going to start brawling in the middle of the hallway,” Clint says softly. “It’s okay. We’re a team.”

The Soldier doesn’t seem convinced, which is fair considering the situation. Clint’s words are as much for Steve as they are for him though, and Steve at least looks slightly mollified. (It’s for the best. Close quarters with no weapons at hand, Steve could probably punch him through a wall.)

“We’re still discussing this,” Steve says finally, turns on his heel.

Clint goes to follow, pauses when he realizes the Soldier isn’t following him. “You want to stay out of this?”

The Soldier shifts on his feet.

“Talk to me,” Clint says. 

“ _You_ should stay out of it,” the Soldier tells him. “Not your problem.”

“Yeah, well,” Clint answers, doesn’t know what to follow it up with. Honesty, he supposes. “I’m gonna listen to him anyway to keep the peace. You do what feels right, buddy.”

“-and _you_ of all people should know better than to take advantage of someone who’s been through this kind of thing! Seriously Clint, what were you _thinking_?”

“I wasn’t. He asked me, and I did it.”

Thinking is overrated. He’s tired.

“Stop.” Natasha appears between them out of nowhere, pushes Steve back with one hand. Clint doesn’t know when she and Sam entered the room, and that’s worrying. He should be paying more attention. “Listen to yourself, Steve. Do you really think this is the right way to do things? Yelling at a teammate for nothing?”

“It’s not nothing,” Steve argues. “He’s been a puppet for years, and now-”

“ _Steve_. What was he like before Clint got back?”

Steve doesn’t answer. _You of all people_ , Clint thinks. He knows what Steve meant - Clint suffered at Loki’s hand for the same situation, so he should understand that his behaviour is incorrect for dealing with someone who’s been brainwashed. Because he’s broken in the same kind of way. Because he and the Soldier are _victims_ , except Clint’s nothing at all like the Soldier.

It’s not the same. Clint’s not even sure the Soldier remembers half of the things he’s done, or cares at all beyond that, and _Clint_ gets to see every single blue-tinted second every time he closes his eyes. The Soldier was a fist and Clint was a snake, wringing out every detail of his coworkers so Loki could peel them apart in front of him and he’d just stand there and watch with a plastic smile glued on his lips-

“He sat in a corner for two weeks,” Natasha says. “He said one sentence and it was always the _same_ sentence.”

“He doesn’t need a mission anymore,” Steve answers, a little desperately. “He’s free.”

“He is," she agrees. "But you’ve got to let him decide what free means.”

“What?”

“You keep saying he was a puppet for so long, and yet,” Natasha says, crossing her arms. “You’re expecting him to automatically revert back to how he was before? It doesn’t work like that.”

“But…”

She steps in closer, looks up into his eyes. “I know you think this is a step back, but you’ve got to take a step back and analyze it. He talks to people now. The kevlar is all but gone. He successfully navigated around the city without the sky falling and then came back. He _made flowers on a cake_ , Steve.”

“Clint’s still ordering him around like a slave,” Steve says, but there’s some reluctance in his voice.

“Clint. Do you tell him what to do unprompted?”

Oh, they’re talking to him. Clint had assumed that he wasn’t part of the conversation anymore. Honestly, he was hoping to zone out for a minute while they argued. Foiled again. Next time he’s just going to leave the room when they get distracted.

“No,” he answers anyway. “He comes to me every time. Asks me to give him a mission.”

Natasha’s got that look on her face like she’s winning. “Have you ever told him to do anything _significant_?”

“He fixed a crack in the sink once,” Clint offers. “I don’t know who taught him home renovation, but he’s pretty good at it. Nice and smooth, couldn’t even tell the crack was there.”

Steve’s still frowning, but he looks thoughtful now. “How do you know you’re not making him do something he doesn’t want to do?”

“I watch his face,” Clint says, lifts one shoulder in a shrug.

“He doesn’t _have_ facial expressions,” Sam says, the first comment he’s had this whole time. “How the hell-”

“We’re trained to read the slightest facial tic,” Natasha cuts in. “Human lie detectors are useful in the field. Clint’s better at it than I am, when he actually makes an effort.”

Steve’s looking at him now with some kind of expression. Clint doesn’t know what to call it. He wants to go back to Kate’s and steal more of her breakfast foods. He’s going to have to send her some groceries to make up for emptying half of her fridge in one morning.

“You’re interpreting it as him saying ‘give me an order, force me to do something like Hydra did,’” Clint says when the silence drags on. Maybe if he talks then Steve will let him go. “When he asks you for a mission, it’s more like ‘I’m restless, I’m used to going out and getting things done, give me something to do.’ I don’t think he knows _how_ to be Bucky Barnes, but you’re not giving him anything else to work with.”

Steve stares at him for another long moment and then sighs heavily, pressing his face into the palm of his hand. He looks _tired_ , and Clint feels for him. It can’t be easy dealing with all of this.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“Not really my place, Stevie,” Clint tells him.

Steve’s silent for a few long minutes and then he walks over, sinks down into an armchair. “I need to learn how to do that,” he says.

“There’s your teacher,” Clint says, points at Natasha.

She smiles. It's a little scary.

Clint doesn't envy Steve.

The Soldier jumps away from the door when Clint walks through it.

He doesn’t comment on the blatantly obvious eavesdropping. “So. Dog Cops.”

“Dog Cops,” the Soldier repeats, a little dubiously. “Cake?”

“...we can do cake,” Clint allows, because it’s been a long day and they deserve a nice cake after all the yelling. The Soldier brightens visibly and Clint’s heart does a worryingly familiar stutter in his chest. Good fucking grief, that’s the last thing he needs from this relationship.

As they’re walking to the elevator, though, the Soldier’s fingertips brush his again.

Hmm.

“He kicked me out of his room this morning,” Steve says as Clint looks up from his cereal.

The strangest thing is that he’s _smiling_ about it. No one in the 1930’s ever said anything about how _weird_ Captain America is. Clint blinks at him blearily for a few minutes and then goes back to eating. He came back from a mission last night and slept for a solid eight hours afterwards, and it might’ve had something to do with the shadow sitting at the bottom of the mattress.

“Good for you,” he tells Steve, before he picks up his mug of gently steaming coffee and cradles it close to his chest. The warmth spreads through his fingers and the thin fabric of his sweater, and it keeps him warm all the way back to the room.

“Is that my shirt?”

The Soldier looks up at him but doesn’t comment, eyes alight with a special sort of amusement. The shirt is an old one, holes in the hem and more grey than blue, but Clint can’t deny it’s a welcome sight after the blood and mayhem of the mission. Part of him suspects that’s _why_ he was herded into this room rather than his own when he’d stepped out the elevator.

“Buddy,” Clint says. “You’re just inviting me to steal those nice hoodies you keep in the closet as retaliation now.”

The Soldier shrugs, unbothered by the concept of his Natasha-bought wardrobe being pillaged, and instead fiddles with his fingers. It’s an interesting enough reaction that Clint sets his coffee on the bedside table and instead sits down next to the Soldier.

He doesn’t elaborate.

Clint _could_ wait him out.

The Soldier gives him a sideways look though, and for once Clint’s not sure he’s reading it correctly.

“Why don’t you give me a mission,” he says instead, adjusts the Soldier’s shirt so it’s sitting properly. “Just this once.”

That gets a reaction.

“I,” he says, stops. “Could you-”

Clint waits.

“Kiss me,” the Soldier blurts out, looks kind of terrified when he says it.

No one should look like that over something as simple as a _kiss_ , though, so Clint just tips his chin up gently and then leans in to press their lips together. It’s probably the nicest mission he’s ever been given, especially because he can feel the Soldier’s lips tick up into a smile after a second. It’s only short, because Clint’s not sure how it’s going to go, but the Soldier tries to follow him when he leans back.

“Any other requests?”

“Again,” the Soldier says, and Clint’s happy to oblige.

**Author's Note:**

> Winterhawk Bingo Square: Clint meets WS!Bucky


End file.
